


[You and Me and You and You] and Us

by a_fanfic_in_a_hedge



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Communication, Multi, Polyamory, The Force, Weird Ways of Conceptualizing the Force, everyone is bi and nothing hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-03-06 19:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13417644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_fanfic_in_a_hedge/pseuds/a_fanfic_in_a_hedge
Summary: Inside her mind, Rey steps back and looks at them. It’s just like she thought. Their specialness is overlapping, twisted up in each other. They work together and they fit.or: four people and the ways in which they fit together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to sideshow-bob on tumblr, who very much deserves a break, baked goods, and drama-free shipping.

The first thing that happens is that Finn comes back with a girl.

The girl is unconscious when they come back, and Finn is carrying her. They’re covered in salt and ash, and they smell like fuel fumes. It’s a smell that Rey knows well. Back on Jakku, it was the smell of survival, the promise of a meal, the last signal of a ship’s carcass just begging for a scrapper to come and pick it clean. Here, she’s learned, it’s the smell of death, and of failure. It’s clung to everyone in the Resistance like so many mynocks on the underbelly of their ships. She’s come to hate it.

When Finn stumbles into the _Falcon_ ( _into her ship_ , she thinks, and feels guilty for thinking it), Rey hugs him and throws a blanket around his shoulders. His face is flecked with scratches and salt, and blood is oozing from his temple.

The girl looks much worse.

Finn accepts the hug, but shrugs off the blanket. “Rose needs it more,” he says, and Rey looks at the girl, and a small part of her brain thinks that she is very pretty.

“Okay,” she says.

They carry the girl ( _Rose_ ) together now, until they come to the little nook in the shared area. Finn lays her out. The remaining Resistance medics swarm, their fingers clutching syringes and bandages, twitchy with pent-up energy. Finn moves like he’s going to try and help. Rey wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Let them do their jobs,” she says, quietly, so no one else can hear.

 “But–” he starts to say, and Poe (who has been lurking near the cockpit, watching them) comes up to him and takes his hand.

“You’ve done what you can, buddy,” he says, and his eyes glitter with something that Rey can’t quite identify. He’s staring straight at Finn, but Finn can’t even see him. His eyes are fixed on Rose. “Rey’s right. They’ve gotta do their jobs.”

Finn nods, still unseeing, still looking at her. Poe squeezes his hand, his eyes still unreadable. He looks at Rey, and she thinks she understands. She doesn’t know what her eyes are saying, but she thinks they might say “me too.” They watch together.

When the medics finish, Rose is as stable as they can make her, and Rey releases Finn. He walks over to her, drapes his blanket around her, and sits down. Rey acts like she’s busy, but she watches him. Rey is very good at watching. So, it seems is Poe. They watch him, and he watches Rose. And suddenly, like the Force is pushing her, Rey understands.

“Oh,” she says, quietly, so no one else can hear. She goes over to Finn. She places a hand on his shoulder ( _less intimate,_ she thinks, and feels sad for thinking it). “Is she…special?” she asks him, tentatively, like she’s checking for unexploded fuel in a wreck.

Finn doesn’t hear her at first. Then his eyes click into focus. “What?” he says, then “Oh. Yes. I think she is.”

“Oh,” Rey says. “Okay. I hope she gets better.”

“She will,” Finn says, and his eyes are not nearly as confident as his words. Rey looks at Rose. She can understand why Rose is special. She _feels_ special, the same way Finn does. Inside her mind, Rey steps back and _looks_ at the two of them ( _looking,_ unlike looking, is a Force thing, and she’s still working on it, but it’s easier than other Force things). It’s just like she thought. Their specialness is overlapping, twisted up in each other. Finn is special like a vintage ship, with parts of him still rusty and in need of repair, but good and strong and able to fly again and carry them farther than they ever thought possible. Rose is special like a perfect gear, just right to fit in and make everything run like it should, right there when you need her. They work together, and they fit together. _They’re right,_ she thinks, as she steps back into herself. She looks at Finn.

“We’ll fix her,” she says, and tries to make it mean _I understand, she is as welcome here as you are, I will give you a place together in my heart, and try and let myself let you go._ She doesn’t think he hears. But she has a ship to fly and a Resistance to hold together, and she doesn’t have time to mourn something that never was. She looks at Poe. He’s watching all of them. His eyes still say something that she can’t quite read. She smiles at him sadly, and tries to say, _me too._ She steps towards the cockpit.

Poe nods. He stands up, brushes off his pants, and walks over to her. On his way, he passes Finn and stops, laying a hand on his shoulder ( _less intimate_ ) that Finn doesn’t acknowledge. He tilts his head towards the front of the ship. _Shall we?,_ the silent question rings in the air. Rey nods.

In the cockpit, Poe sighs. “She’s a good kid,” he says. “Brave. She took a chance that I don’t think anyone else could have taken. And she saved him. That’s why she’s hurt so bad. I don’t know what went on between them on their mission, but they mean a lot to each other.” He runs a hand through his hair.

A porg hops onto the seat beside Rey. She runs her fingers absently through its feathers. “He means a lot to me. And to you.”

“Yeah, but I think this might be different.”

Rey looks at him at that, raising an eyebrow. “Is it? I can see the way you look at him, it’s the same way he’s been looking at her this whole time.”

Poe flushes. “Look, I don’t know what you think you see, but…” his hot retort trails off as he looks into her eyes. “No, you’re right. I need to be honest with myself. Less reactive. You’re right. I do.” He ruffles his hair again. _A nervous tic,_ Rey thinks, _it’s cute._ Then she thinks _why did I think that?_ “You do too,” he says.

Rey nods. “I know. I can’t now. Neither can you.”

Poe won’t look at her. He’s looking back out the door. At him

 “We _can’t,_ ” she says, more emphatically. “He hasn’t had anything, and they fit together. _They’re special,”_ she whispers, because that kind of thing feels like it should be secret.

Poe frowns at that. “And you’re not?” he says, then shuts up just as quickly, like he didn’t mean to say that. Rey doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Not the way they are. They’re the right kind of special for each other, and I can’t explain it any better, but we can’t mess that up.”

Poe’s mouth twists, like there’s something painful inside him. His eyes are full of something she can’t identify, again. Rey steps back for a moment, in her mind, and _looks_ at him. It hits her like coming out of hyperdrive. _Oh,_ she thinks, _he’s special too._

She hadn’t really thought about it, but of course he is. Poe practically glows with specialness. Everyone in the Resistance can see it. He’s special like a guiding star, or a beacon, pulling those around him home, or away from home to where they need to be. Even here, in the tiny cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon,_ she can feel the entire Resistance’s awareness of him, and the comfort they take in his conviction. She steps back into herself. He’s staring at her. She realizes that she’s staring at him, too.

“Rey, buddy, you okay?” he says, concerned. She nods. For some reason she can’t speak. Then she realizes that it’s real, that Finn has stepped away from both of them, and picked someone else’s hand to hold.

She finds her voice. “I’m okay.”

Rey’s always been a bad liar. Poe raises an eyebrow, and wordlessly opens his arms. Something inside Rey breaks open, and everything that’s happened since she last saw them washes over her, meeting Luke and then losing him, and then coming home and losing so many more, and _everything_ that Ren did to her and all her friends, and now losing Finn. Rey strides over and wraps her arms around him, and doesn’t cry (he does), and lets herself be comforted.

She thinks to herself, _today has been a very long day. For all of us._

Poe mumbles something into her shoulder. “What?” she says.

He looks at her. “I said, you wanna teach me how to fly this garbage heap?”

Rey, despite the day she has had, laughs at that, and nods. Then she mock-scowls and points a finger at him. “Don’t you talk about my ship that way, Dameron.”

It’s Poe’s turn to chuckle, and he rubs his eyes as he does. “So sorry to offend, Master Jedi.” Rey smacks his arm for that, but she’s smiling now. She drags him to the co-pilot’s seat (empty of co-pilots, but covered in Wookie hair and occupied by one very brave porg), and sits him down (the porg, luckily, escapes death by Dameron).

“So, this is the one that gets the engine running, and this is the one that…” she continues pointing out the controls to him. Neither of them notice that Finn has stopped watching Rose. He’s still sitting beside her, holding her hand. But now he’s looking at them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A timeskip and a perspective shift later, Rose wakes up.

The worst part of it is that Poe actually likes Rose.

And _Force_ does he wish he didn’t. It would be so much easier if the man he was in love with was in love with a girl who was awful, or dumb, or self-centered, and he could hate her with impunity. But she’s not. She’s smart and kind and brave, and so dedicated to the Resistance that ten minutes after she wakes up from the artificially-induced coma that the medics have kept her in for the three months they spent running, (once they’ve checked that she’s not dying again), she asks him where she’ll be assigned.

Poe shakes his head. “Uh-uh. You’re still on bed rest and physiotherapy, Technician Tico, and don’t let me catch you trying to sneak into the engineering room.”

“But, Commander,” she says, and _ooh,_ that makes Poe wince. General Organa, despite reiterating her trust in him several times, still hasn’t reinstated him. He gets it. He kriffed up _really_ bad. It still stings, though.

Rose sees him flinch, and she looks concerned. He waves it off and smiles. “It’s nothing, Rose. And no buts. You need time to get better, you got banged up pretty badly out there.”

“Out there…” Her brow furrows. “So we did it? We chased them off? The base is safe!” Her face floods with excitement. She looks so young just then, younger than Finn has looked in months. Oh, _kriff,_ Finn. Finn doesn’t know that his…his Rose is awake yet. But he will soon.

“Er…” Poe says, not entirely sure how to break it to her. “Not exactly, no. But we’re alive. Well, some of us.”

The joy on Rose’s face dies, and Poe’s heart, if it’s even possible, breaks even more. “Some of us,” she says, and then panic dances its way across her features. She looks like she might cry. “Oh no, is Finn–”

“No, no, no no no,” says Poe, frantically waving his hands, and why did the universe choose this moment, when he and Rey had pulled Finn away from her bed in order to get some food into him and he had offered to stay to ease his mind, to wake her up. He’s so bad at this. “No, he’s fine. You saved him.”

Rose relaxes. She sniffles a few times before Poe realizes that she’s crying. “Oh no, no please don’t, I’m–” he stops himself, because he and Leia (and Rey a little bit too) have been doing a lot of talking about being emotionally honest and okay with vulnerability and failure, and not jumping into situations before he understands what’s going on. He takes a deep breath instead. “Sorry. I meant to say, are you okay?”

Rose smiles through her tears. “Yeah, I’m okay, I think. This is just a lot.”

Poe nods. “It really is. A lot. We haven’t exactly been in good shape since you’ve been out.”

She looks serious now. “How long…?”

“Three months.” It’s her turn to wince now. “You were in a bad way, Rose. We didn’t know if you’d pull through without proper medical equipment. We were lucky that this base was still off the grid and fully stocked.” He gestures at the outdated-but-functional medbay around them. “We found this place two weeks ago. We moved you in as soon as we could and the medics started proper treatment. Finn hasn’t left your side since we got here, pretty much.”

At the mention of Finn, Rose perks up. “Where is he?”

“Rey got to him, talked him into eating real food for once. I sent BB-8 to get him once the doctors cleared you. He’s probably strapped a hyperdrive onto his back to get here faster.” Rose laughs at that. _She has a nice laugh_ , Poe thinks, then _cut it out, Dameron, don’t make this harder for yourself._

He keeps talking so he doesn’t have to think about Finn and Rose together. “And I’m sorry I can’t put you back on duty, but we’re really short on people at the moment, and I’ve kind of ended up managing all the duty rosters for all the departments, and I need you in your best shape before I let you back out there.”

Rose nods. Then she squints. “How the kriff did _you_ end up managing duty rosters? You’re not exactly the poster boy for project management.”

Poe shrugs. That’s fair. “It’s a really long story. See, I don’t know much about keeping a rebellion running, but I used to be in charge of the cleaning schedules for the X-Wing squadrons ages ago, and the General was at the end of her rope…”

By the time Finn bursts through the door, with a SLAM and a cry of “Rose!” and followed by BB-8 going as fast as it could, they’re laughing hysterically together, and Poe’s mission to Dislike Rose Tico has utterly fallen apart. Her smile is infectious, and even though her entire life has been ripped apart ( _like all their lives,_ he thinks, and then feels melancholy about it), she’s getting along as best she can. Just like him. Just like all of them, his crew, his Resistance, his family. She’s part of that. _How could I hate her?_ he thinks.

Rose shoots up. “Finn!” she cries, then “Ow!” as three months of stiff and atrophied muscles catch up with her. She rubs her back. Finn’s face is shot through with concern.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice frantic. “I came as soon as I heard, I should never have left, I–” Rose raises a hand.

“I’m fine, I’m just stiff, and you _should_ be looking after yourself,” she says, and she’s smiling at him, and it’s radiant. Finn is smiling too, smiling at her, and his face is lit up like Poe’s never seen.

No. Not never. Poe’s seen that smile once before. On D’Qar. His gut twists, and he remembers why he wished he could hate Rose. He hopes they can’t see it on his face. But of course they can’t. They only have eyes for each other.

He stands and clears his throat awkwardly. “I’ll, that is, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to go…do…things. You two catch up.” He heads for the door. In the doorframe, he turns back. Finn has taken the chair Poe had just been occupying. He’s pulled it closer to Rose’s bed and taken her hand. He’s looking at her like she just handed him a star. Poe lets himself look for just a moment. Rose catches him. An expression that he doesn’t quite understand flashes over her face. He clears his throat again. “Technician Tico.”

“Yes?” She doesn’t use his rank. He honestly kind of appreciates it.

“…Look out for him. He’s a mess without you.” Finn blushes, and Poe leaves before he can do anything else stupid. He doesn’t catch Finn and Rose looking at him, and looking at each other, and looking back at him, or the wordless exchange that follows. Instead, he goes to find Rey, BB-8 rolling along at his heels.

There are two things about Rey that are great. No, there are hundreds of things about Rey that are great, but there are two great things about her that are relevant to Poe’s current situation. The first is that she also desperately wants Finn to be happy. The second is that she is also in love with him. It makes it very easy to commiserate with her, which is nice, because Poe thinks he would have probably imploded from the pressure, of wanting Finn and spending three months in the very enclosed space of the _Falcon_ with him and not being able to have him, otherwise.

It’s not just their shared heartbreak that connects them, though. Poe didn’t really have much time to know Rey before this, but he actually really likes her. She’s tough as anything, and she sees things that no one else does. And she likes flying. When he gets an X-Wing again, Poe thinks, he’s going to teach her how to fly it. She’s exactly the sort of person he wants right next to him when they make their move against the First Order.

And (although he doesn’t want to admit it to himself), there’s a part of him that thinks maybe, after they both move on, and they can like Finn without loving him, there could be something more between them. It’s just a little thought that first flitted its way through his mind a month back, watching her do her Force exercises in the common area of the _Falcon._ The General and a few of the more Force-sensitive members of the Resistance had joined her, but Poe had stood back, choosing to watch instead. Rey had just lifted a pile of porgs into the air, and she had laughed and grinned, and it occurred to Poe how beautiful his new friend was.

(It didn’t exactly help that the Force stuff reminded him of his pre-adolescent celebrity crush on Luke Skywalker, which the General and Rey absolutely _do not_ know about.

Okay, they probably know. Damn it.)

But then wasn't the time, and now isn't the time, and he still loves Finn too much. _Oh Force,_ how much he loves him. Poe stops in the hall and presses his forehead into the metal siding. Seeing Finn happy, really happy, for the first time in months had set his heart racing on him faster than any of the hundreds of firefights he’d been since he’d joined the Resistance.

“Dameron, you moron, stop doing this to yourself,” he mutters, and BB-8 bumps sympathetically against his leg and whistles something up at him.

Poe chuckles. “Yeah, buddy, me too. But we can’t solve this one. Gotta let it run its course, like Leia said I should.”

BB-8 has some choice things to say about that plan.

They find Rey where Finn left her, in the mess hall. She waves them over. People had stopped worrying about maintaining the divides of rank in spaces like this. They’d lost too much to care. This was the time to hold onto each other, harder than ever before. Poe flops down on the chair next to Rey, and looks over the dining space. They’re all closer than ever. It makes the spark burn harder than ever before inside Poe. This is what he has to protect. All of this.

Rey can sense him thinking. “I can sense you thinking,” she says. “She’s awake.” It’s not a question. For what other reason would Finn have run out like that? Poe knows that this will be the talk of the base. They’re all rooting for _those two kids_ as the General calls them, lovingly and with more than a bit of snark.

“Yeah,” says Poe, because what else can he say?

“Good,” says Rey, and Poe knows that she means it. Rey is good like that. She hasn’t been trying to hate Rose. Poe isn’t as good as her. He puts an arm around her shoulders. She picks at her food, clearly not wanting to talk.

They sit quietly together for a while, then Rey says “We should get to know her.”

Poe smiles. “We should. She’s good. And she’s good for him.”

Rey nods. They don’t say anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Wow, it's been a bit since I updated this, hasn't it? Sorry for the delay, my only excuse is that school both is happening and is exhausting. I'm actually putting off working on a project by posting this. The rest of the fic is completed, but still needs editing, and so it might be a while until I post it. Anyway, thank you so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Move On Like An Adult is go, and Poe gives it his best shot.

The next thing that happens is that time moves on, like it always does, and Poe tries to move with it. He throws himself into his work, into scheduling and flight tests and training new pilots and meetings with the General and spending time with Rey, and he really, _really_ tries to move on.

And part of moving on is spending time with Finn as just friends. And spending time with Finn means spending time with Rose. So he does.

And of _course_ he likes her. No one could spend time with Rose and not like her.  She’s great. She’s not perfect, but she’s good, and she’s good for Finn. He opens up like Poe’s never seen. He talks to people now, where he had avoided them before. He joins Rey and the General in their group meditations. He helps out in engineering (and by helps out Poe really means that he tries his best and stays out of the way when asked), and _wow_ Poe needs to stop volunteering to help the engineers, because Finn with a wrench is something he cannot handle. And he smiles. He smiles so much now.

Time moves on, like it always does, and Poe knows should be moving on. He’s been trying to move on. He’s _supposed_ to move on. But seeing Finn happy and unburdened is like a drug, and Poe can’t stop feeling like he’s somehow addicted. Then hearing Rey laugh starts to feel the same way, and Poe knows where this is going, but he can’t stop. And then, because he’s cursed or something, seeing _Rose,_ of all people, Rose’s smile (the little one she has when no one else can see, when she solves a problem and allows herself a moment of victory) starts to trigger the same reaction.

Before he notices, months have gone by, and he’s closer than ever to _all_ of them (because his heart can’t ever make this kriffing easy, can it?) _This isn’t working,_ he thinks to himself, _I have to walk away. It’s not fair to any of them._ The thought of it makes his chest ache, but he can’t let himself feel like this.

Poe stops eating in the common area with the rest of them. He picks up his food early and eats in his quarters, making some excuse about extra work that needs doing. He does the same thing the next night. And the next. And the next. And every night that week. He avoids them in the halls, he stops spending time in the hangar, because he knows that they’ll be there, he fiddles with the duty rosters to keep himself away. He’s doing the right thing, he tells himself. He’s doing the right thing, and that is comfort enough.

He’s so lonely.

Two weeks into Operation Move On Like An Adult And Also Try To Stop Being In Love With His Three Best Friends, there’s a knock on his door. Poe looks up from where he’s lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He sighs, dropping his head back down on his pillow. He waits for whoever it is to realize they have the wrong door and go away.

The knock sounds again. Poe rolls over. BB-8 whistles at him from its charging station, its irritation obvious.

The knock sounds again, and BB-8 rolls its body in place. Poe pushes himself up on his elbows to glare at it. “If you care so much, you open it.” He gets the sense that if BB-8 could roll its sensor, it would.

The knock sounds again. And again. And again, more insistently each time. BB-8 looks pointedly at him.

Poe shoves himself up and sighs even more heavily. Maybe the General needs him. He swings his legs off the side of the bed, and forces himself to stand up. He considers putting on a shirt, and then doesn’t. He walks over to the door and opens it.

Standing there, looking a little embarrassed, is Finn. Holding his hand, her other raised to pound on the door and with a determined expression on her face, is Rose.

Poe blinks. “Ro-ah, Technician Tico. What can I do for you…two?” He rubs his face. It’s stubblier than he usually lets it get. Finn stares resolutely at the doorframe, deliberately avoiding Poe’s eyes. That’s fine, since Rose seems determined to make him look at her.

“We need to talk,” she says, and she pushes past him, pulling Finn along with her. They sit down together on the end of Poe’s bed. They leave a space between them. Rose pats it. “Sit down.”

Poe sits. He doesn’t say anything. He stares at the wall. Rose and Finn look at him, and then at each other, and then back at him. Then they have a conversation entirely through gesture and facial expression that Poe pretends he can’t see.

Finally, Rose says something. “So…you’ve been avoiding us.”

“What?” says Poe, “No I haven’t. I’ve just been busy.”

“Doing what?” says Finn.

“Doing…things,” says Poe, and he thinks _kriff._ “Like I’ve been working on a new training simulation and other…things…” he trails off.

“Really,” says Rose. “So you haven’t been hiding in your room and not talking to anyone and shutting off all your outlets and avoiding your friends. Because that’s what it’s felt like you’re doing.”

Poe sighs. “I’m not trying to shut you out. I just…I just need space right now.”

“Why?” says Finn. “Did we do something wrong? Do you not like us anymore?”

“No! That’s not it at all, that’s–” Poe takes a deep breath. “That’s not what it is.”

“So there _is_ a problem,” says Rose, and she folds her arms. “ _Tell_ us, Poe, we can help you

 Poe runs his hands through his hair, sending it up around his head. “You really can’t, Rose, trust me, you can’t.”

“Not unless you tell us what the problem is!” Rose says, her hands flying up in irritation. Finn isn’t saying anything. He’s just looking at Poe, and he looks so sad. Rose continues, her hands animating the air. “I can’t believe you’re shutting us out like this, unless there’s something wrong with u–”

“The problem isn’t you, it’s me!” Poe says, the words exploding out of him. Rose starts a little, like she wasn’t expecting to be interrupted. “The problem is that I like you. I liked Finn at first, and then I liked Rey and then you, Rose, and it’s not _fair_. I like you too much. It’s not fair to you, that I want you to feel like I do, and it’s not fair to me, because I like you, _all_ of you, and I need to not like you, so that we can be friends.”

Finn blinks. “What.”

Poe looks at Rose pleadingly. She shakes her head. “No, I’m with him on this one. What.”

BB-8 whistles. Rose looks at it.

“Wait, really?” she says, and BB-8 whistles again. “Like, _like-_ like?” BB-8 makes the sound that it uses when it feels accomplished.

Poe stares at the wall. Rose looks at Finn. Finn looks at Rose, and then at Poe, and then back at Rose, and then he asks her a question using only his eyebrows. And Rose nods. Poe looks harder at the wall. He can see a spot where the paint has chipped. He focuses on that and not the hole in the pit of his stomach.

“Poe,” says Finn, and Poe doesn’t look at him.

“Poe,” he says again, more insistently. Poe doesn’t look at him.

“Poe, please look at me.” And Poe does. Finn reaches out and takes his chin in his hand. And then he leans forward and kisses him.

Poe pulls away sharply. “What.”

Finn looks worried. “Oh kriff, did you not want that? I’m so sorry, I–” Poe raises a hand to stop him.

“No, no, I really, _really_ did want that, but what about…?” he gestures between them. And then Rose surprises him by kissing him too.

Poe pulls away, softer this time. “Okay, now I’m even more confused.”

Finn runs a hand through his hair. “The thing is, we like you too. Like, _like you-_ like you,” he tilts his head to BB-8, who beeps happily.

Rose nods. “And we were talking, and we thought that we would ask you what you thought, but then you started avoiding us, and I asked Rey and she said she didn’t know, but Rey is a terrible liar, so then we thought that maybe we’d upset you by being weird and obvious about liking you?”

Finn reaches over and squeezes her hand. “So we decided to come and talk to you, but then…” he trails off, and looks at Poe searchingly.

Poe looks at both of them, watching him, waiting for a sign. He takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Rose repeats.

“Okay. Let’s try,” Poe says, and Finn smiles at him. Rose smiles too. Poe thinks, _let them always look at me like that._ Then Finn tackles him onto the bed and he doesn’t have time to think about much more beyond his immediate situation.

After, blessed after, when his mind is much clearer than it’s been in months, he runs his fingers through Finn’s hair as Rose uses the fresher. It’s so easy, and simple, and just _nice._ It’s been a very long time since Poe’s felt nice. When Finn turns around, he realizes that he said that aloud.

“You should have said something earlier,” he says, and Poe is just embarrassed enough to look away.

“I was scared,” he admits, “And I didn’t want to ruin…things.”

Finn leans back against his chest. “You know, I actually get it? You and Rey, you two were my first friends ever, and I thought everything would be harder if we tried to do something like this. I think I needed Rose, so I could figure out how _this_ –“ he gestures vaguely at Poe and the fresher door and the entire room – “could work.”

Poe nods. Then his brow furrows. “Rey?”

Finn takes a deep breath. “Yeah, Rey. Me and Rose, we want her to be part of this. Is that okay with you?” Poe can’t see his face, but he’s sure he knows what expression is painted across it. He can see it behind his eyelids, the little frown, the forehead lines, the concern in Finn’s eyes. It used to break his heart. It’s good to know that this time, it is entirely unwarranted

“Yeah,” he says, “That’s okay. That might be better than okay.”

“Okay,” Finn says, and still he doesn’t turn around, but he settles against Poe, and Poe can feel the tension flood out of him and onto the floor.

“Okay,” says Rose, and Poe turns towards where she is leaning against the fresher door. She must have come out while they were talking. Her hair is damp and clinging to her neck, and her arms are folded. She looks beautiful.

Poe scoots over so she can sit next to them. “The only problem is, how the hell are we going to tell her? It took us this long to figure things out for the three of us, and Rey is _Rey._ It’s not gonna be easy.”

Rose smiles as she flops down beside them. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll talk to her.”

“But not right now,” Finn mumbles, his eyes closed.

Rose shakes her head, and leans against him. “Not right now. Soon. But not right now.”

Poe nods, although neither of them can see him. "Yeah, not right now. But soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been a minute, hasn't it? The thing about studying English is that all of your assignments end up due at the end of term, and if you're like me and you procrastinated, you end up dying a little as you power through them, and other writing gets put on the backburner. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey explains the Force, and things resolve.

The last thing that happens is that Rey decides that it’s for the best that she steps back from her friends. Or at least that’s what she tells herself.

They’re just so happy together. They’re not showing it off, but Rey is a good observer, and she can see things that other people can’t. She can see how closely Finn and Rose and Poe stand, and how their hands drift back and forth across the space between them when they think no one can see. She sees how Finn leans his head on Poe’s shoulder, and how Poe fiddles with the ends of Rose’s hair.

And she sees them, too. When she steps back inside herself and _looks_ at them, they overflow with light. Their specialness locks together into something bigger than them, into something that everyone around them can feel. The base loves them. _Those three kids,_ the General calls them, overflowing with fondness. There are spots where they jar occasionally, where the thing that they are sticks and doesn’t flow quite right, but Rey knows enough to know that this isn’t a bad or broken thing. It’s normal and it’s good.

And she isn’t part of it. And that’s fine.

Rey is not a very good liar.

But it’s for the best, and they’re so happy, and she doesn’t want to ruin it. She’s sneakier than Poe. They don’t notice that she’s pulling away.

It’s _fine._

Spending time alone is good, anyway. It gives her time to test her connection to the Force, and reach out to the people she feels waiting just beyond her grasp, waiting for her to be ready to meet them.

She spends a lot of time in the _Falcon._ She’s there now, sitting on top of it in the hangar bay, her eyes closed, feeling the Force all around her, using it to lift a hunk of scrap metal that someone left in the middle of the floor. She’s so focused that she doesn’t sense Rose sitting down next to her. She doesn’t notice until Rose says “Hey.”

The metal drops with a resounding _clang,_ and Rose jumps. Rey winces, but she’s used to the sound of things falling out of the air. She’s dropped most of the things she’s tried to lift.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

Rose shrugs. “I’m pretty quiet.” She doesn’t apologize for bothering Rey, the way that other people do, like they think that they bother her at all. Rey is almost never bothered by people. There’s only one person who bothers her, and he’s been resolutely cut off.

Rey takes a deep breath, because thinking about Ren always makes her angry and she doesn’t want to be angry at people who aren’t him just because he’s terrible. “Did you need something?” she asks.

“No,” Rose says. “I just wanted to sit with you.”

“Oh,” says Rey. “Okay.”

They sit quietly for a while, and Rey closes her eyes and reaches out into the Force. It’s trying to tell her something, but she can’t tell what. For lack of a better metaphor, Rey thinks that it’s tugging at the clothes of the being that she is when she steps back from herself and trying to pull her to something. She casts out with her mind and asks it _where,_ but it doesn’t say anything. It just pulls. Rey opens her eyes. Rose is looking at her.

“Have you been spending time alone to try and do that?” she asks, and it occurs to Rey that maybe she isn’t as sneaky as she previously thought.

“…Kind of,” she says. “It’s easier, sometimes, when I’m alone.”

“Why?” Rose asks, and Rey has to think about that for a bit.

“It’s like…everyone is in the Force in a different way. I think of it like specialness. Everyone has a way of being special, and when you feel someone with the Force, you can feel how they’re different from everyone else, and how they work in the universe. And when there are a lot of people around, you can feel how they fit together, and it gets a little crowded, so when I’m practicing, it’s easier if I’m the only one.”

Rose furrows her brow. “Can you feel me in the Force?”

Rey nods. “You’re like a gear. Like a really, really good gear. You help make everything work right, and sometimes people don’t notice you, but when you were missing everything was out of alignment. You’re the kind of person people need.”

Rose flushes. “Um…I don’t really know if that’s true.”

“Well I do,” says Rey, and she means it. “I know it about everyone. Like Poe is like a beacon, and without him we don’t know where we’re going. And Finn is like a ship, and he carries us when we need him, and without him we’re stranded. And the General is like the Force itself, she keeps us all together and reminds us that the things that we’re part of are bigger and smaller than us, and without her we don’t know where we belong. And–”

“What about you?” asks Rose, and Rey starts.

“What?” she says.

“What about you? How are you in the Force?” Rose looks at her expectantly.

Rey thinks for a minute. “I don’t know,” she says, finally. “I’ve never seen myself in it. Except for one time, and that was a bad time.”

Rose looks thoughtful. She stares at Rey. She doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then she says “I think maybe you’re like a nav system.”

“What,” Rey says.

“Well, if I’m a gear, and Poe is a beacon, and Finn is a ship, then we have a place to go, and an engine that runs, and a ship that can fly, but we don’t know how to get there. Then there’s you. You show us the right path, you give us a way forward, and you don’t let us falter off the course. We’re lost if you aren’t with us.” Rose smiles, mostly to herself, and Rey wonders if she’s been missing something that the others have been trying to tell her for a long time. She looks down at her hands. Then she steps back inside herself, and _looks_ at the two of them together for a long time.

Rey steps back into herself. “Oh,” she says. Rose looks at her fondly.

“I was wondering when you’d get it.” Then she leans over and kisses Rey, very, very softly.

Rey doesn’t pull away right away. She stays where she is, keeping her eyes closed, feeling the world around her. She can feel Rose’s breath against her mouth, her eyelashes brushing her cheeks, the texture of her skin beside Rey’s own. And she can feel the Force around her. For lack of a better metaphor, it feels settled and satisfied. Or maybe accomplished. Or victorious. Or all of these things at once. Or none of them. Explaining the metaphorical emotional state of the most powerful thing in the galaxy, Rey decides, is difficult.

“Okay,” she says, and she can feel Rose smile.

Later, much later, after several conversations and a lot of blushing and some concerns about ranks and safety and consent that are resolved through a meeting with the General that she  seems to enjoy immensely, they are all piled up on Poe’s too-small bed in his cramped quarters. Rey’s head is leaned against Rose’s chest, which raises and settles slowly beneath her. Her hand is tangled with Finn’s, who lies on top of Poe. Poe’s head is in turn resting on Rose’s shoulder. Everyone but Rey is asleep.

Rey takes a deep breath, steps back inside herself, and _looks_ at them all. Then the her that she is in the Force smiles. _Everything fits,_ she thinks. Then she steps back into herself, and lets sleep overwhelm her. As her eyes slide closed, she thinks _the right kind of special for each other._ And then she doesn’t have to think about anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to thank sideshow-bob one more time, for inspiring this fic and for being generally excellent. I hope this was everything you wanted it to be.
> 
> Thank you as well, for reading this little fic for this little ship. It was a whole lot of fun to write, and I hope it was just as fun to read!


End file.
